Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Empedocles, Novalis and Bonaventura

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4 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating [Empedocles, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Empedocles says there is no coming-to-be of anything, but only a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled.
     From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314b08
     A reaction: Aristotle comments that this prevents Empedocleans from distinguishing between superficial alteration and fundamental change of identity. Presumably, though, that wouldn't bother them.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
Refinement of senses increasingly distinguishes individuals [Novalis]
     Full Idea: The more our senses are refined, the more capable they become of distinguishing between individuals. The highest sense would be the highest receptivity to particularity in human nature.
     From: Novalis (Miscellaneous Observations [1798], 072)
     A reaction: I adore this idea!! It goes into the collection of support I am building for individual essences, against the absurd idea of kinds as essences (when they are actually categorisations). It also accompanies particularism in ethics.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 6. Successive Things
Successive things reduce to permanent things [Bonaventura]
     Full Idea: Everything successive reduces to something permanent.
     From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], II.2.1.1.3 ad 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2
     A reaction: Avicenna first took successive entities seriously, but Bonaventure and Aquinas seem to have rejected them, or given reductive accounts of them. It resembles modern actualists versus modal realists.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 10. Beginning of an Object
Substance is not created or destroyed in mortals, but there is only mixing and exchange [Empedocles]
     Full Idea: There is no creation of substance in any one of mortal existence, nor any end in execrable death, but only mixing and exchange of what has been mixed.
     From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B008), quoted by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes 1111f
     A reaction: also Aristotle 314b08